Bianca Belair Explains Origins Of ‘EST’ Nickname & Signature Look

Bianca Belair has had a great 2021. She won the main event of WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble and the SmackDown Women’s Championship all in her first official year on the main roster.

Part of Bianca’s meteoric rise is her eye-catching look with her trademark braid, as well as her EST nickname. Belair recently spoke to Inside the Ropes, where she opened up about the origins of her character.

Belair explained:

“It actually just kind of happened. No-one really pitched it. I remember being in NXT and Mark Henry came down to the Performance Center and I was very new and he asked me, You know, ‘What do you want to be? What do you want people to think about when they see you?’ And I kind of didn’t really understand it at first. But, you know, he was like, ‘You want to be able to have something that’s very simple, simplified, you can easily understand. And when people look at you, you don’t have to open your mouth or say anything, they already know what you’re about.’ So that’s kind of where I came up with the braid and my husband encouraged the signature look. Like, ‘No, go with the braid. Because even if people come to the show for the first time, they might not remember your name the first time, but they always remember the girl with the ponytail, the braid.’ So that’s, you know, that stuck with me.

Belair continued on to explain how her EST nickname came to be due to the name ‘NXT’. She explained:

“And then I was in NXT, see, and I was, you know, cutting promos about how I’m strong, but I’m also fast. I’m also tough. I’m kind of all-around the strongest, I’m the fastest and I’m the roughest and the toughest and the quickest, just all around athlete. And then the “est” was kind of at the end of it. So I was like, ‘EST rhymes with NXT. I’m the EST of NXT.’ It all just was a perfect fit. It all just fell into place like everything has in my journey. So kind of just came about and it was the first thing that I started doing and it stuck. And it’s kind of what I’ve just been riding with from the beginning.”

Bianca Belair is currently in a rivalry with Becky Lynch over the SmackDown Women’s Championship, with the two going to a no contest at last night’s Extreme Rules show following the return of Sasha Banks.

quote via Inside the Ropes

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